Automation projects or electrical engineering projects can be projects which can be aimed at bidding, planning, designing, installation, commissioning and servicing of technical installations or systems for automating and/or supplying power to a technical process or facility, where the technical installation or system can be for example a process automation system for a factory or a control system for a power plant or a power supply system for a building complex.
Such a project can undergo various phases, which can occur subsequently or in parallel, such as tendering, collection of specifications or requirements, planning of information signals, planning of power cabling and/or communication networks, engineering of control logic, configuration of human machine interfaces (HMIs) and system integration. The phases themselves can again be divided into a certain number of working steps. A working step can include at least one activity which generates at least one output information and/or at least one physical result. Inside a workflow of a project, the at least one output information and/or physical can result represent at least one input information and/or prerequisite for a subsequent working step, respectively. Examples for working steps can be the planning of cross controller communication during the planning of information signals, the designing of process graphics during the configuration of HMIs, the implementation of sequence control logics during the control logic engineering or the parameterization of controllers during system integration and sub-parts of these activities.
Currently, it would be desirable to perform at least some working steps automatically by computer tools. Examples for currently known automated working steps can be the configuration of devices based on templates, the auto-generation of control code for I/O boards and the auto-generation of order requests based on material lists. It would be further desirable that more and more of these computer tools can be enabled to communicate with each other so that not only a single working step but a whole sequence of working steps can be performed automatically.
During execution of the phases and their corresponding working steps, a considerable number of different professions, different computer tools and different types of information have to go hand in hand and need to be coordinated in order to ensure that the resulting technical installation or system functions properly. For example, some working steps cannot be performed before other working steps can be successfully finished or before certain input information is available.
These interrelations between working steps can be visualized by a workflow diagram, such as depicted in FIG. 3, where the numbered rectangles 101 to 113 each represent a working step. The four input circles on the left hand side illustrate external inputs which can be involved in performing the working steps 101, 102 and 104 connected by arrows to the input circles. Working steps 101 and 104 each receive two external inputs. On the right hand side, the external outputs generated by the working steps 110, 112 and 113 can be depicted by three output circles connected again by arrows to the corresponding working steps. Working steps 103, 105 to 109 and 111 only have internal input and output connections (e.g., they receive their inputs from one or more preceding working steps of the workflow and deliver their outputs to one or more subsequent working steps of the workflow).
Inputs to and outputs from working steps can be on the one hand data, information or decisions and on the other hand physical objects, such as documents, tools or installed equipment, no matter whether they can be external or internal inputs or outputs.
At least some of the working steps of FIG. 3 can be performed automatically by using a system as shown in FIG. 1. A first computing device PC1 contains a data input interface 1 for reading in input information of a working step, where the input information is delivered by either a second computing device PC2, which can have performed one or more preceding working steps, by a first data repository 12 located for example on a central data server, or by interaction with a user via for example an acoustic input device 10, a pointing device 11 and/or a keyboard. The input information is represented by one or more input values, where the input values can, for example, be constants or variables, predefined or continuously changing and where the input values can be given directly as numbers or in text form which is later transformed into numbers. The first computing device PC1 further can include a processing unit 3 for generating the output information of the working step by processing the input information during performance of a predefined task allocated to the working step, and a data output interface 2 for transmitting input as well as output information to further devices for further processing and/or data storage and/or acoustic or graphic visualization. The further devices can, for example, be a third computing device PC3 which is arranged for performing subsequent working steps, a second data repository 13 which can be located on the same central data server as the first data repository 12 or on another storage device, a graphic display unit 14 or an acoustic display unit 15. The output information is represented by one or more output values, which again can be constants or variables and can be given in text form or directly as numbers. The second and third computing devices, PC2 and PC3, both can contain the same components as the first computing device PC1 (e.g., a data input interface 4 or 7, a processing unit 6 or 9 and a data output interface 5 or 8, respectively).
As becomes clear from FIG. 3, a workflow of an automation and/or electrical engineering project can contain a considerable number of closely meshed working steps where each working step can only be performed when all specified inputs can be available and where a change in one external input or in the output of a preceding working step can affect a comparatively large number of subsequent working steps.
In actual execution of automation and/or electrical engineering projects, the collection of specified input information can be a cumbersome task and can lead to delays. In addition, facts and data as well as the physical environment of a project may not be static, which can lead to frequent changes. These changes can result in further delays because a number of already finished working steps have to be performed again.